Trip Log problems

[Paul_ffitch]

I have just completed a walk with recently upgraded 1.16 software. As others have already said, immediately apparent improvements include battery bar usefulness, GPS sensitivity, and certain user interface tweaks, so I'm pleased with the upgrade, and indeed still pleased with the unit as a whole.

But I am still a little frustrated with the Trip Log functions, specifically:

-accuracy still seems poor. The walk I did today was measured as 7.8km on Memory Map, but came up as 9.3km on the Trip Log. A previous walk using 1.03 software was 16km on Memory Map, but came out as 20km on the Trip Log. Not sure if this represents any change between versions or not.

-When you press 'Stop', I want the Trip Log to stop logging. However although the Distance, Time, and Time Moving logs are stopped and frozen, others are not. The Straight Line Distance, Average Moving, Average Speed (I think), Max Speed, and the plotted elevation profile data all keep going.

-When you do a 'Convert Trail to Track', it converts the entirety of the red dotted Trail to a track/route, ie including all trail data after you pressed Stop on the Trip Log screen. When I press Stop, I want that to be the end of any converted trail. Certainly that was how my Magellan unit worked, but it's not how the Satmap unit works.

Has anybody else got any other issues or comments about the Trip Log function? I think the one I would most like to see improved is the distance accuracy. I don't know how other GPS makes fare here, but it is likely to be a figure that most people using a Satmap would want to be fairly accurate.

[mikealder]

I must admit I would like a Pause function added for the trip log, and this should suspend all logging data, releasing the pause function the device should start from where it last was and continue logging.
The stop / start is too brutal, not everyone completes a walk in one pass, a stop at lunch or even overnight can mess up the log file - Mike

[LostMike]

I have not used 1.16 enough yet to decide if the distance measurement is fair or not. The results on the earlier software were odd and at variance with different A10 readings. I hope that is not still the case.

The difference with Multi Map might be from a finer monitoring of where you are actually walking.

I agree with Mike that a pause would be nice, as would bringing in the height monitoring in line with everything else.

For the time being I will continue to convert trail to track as soon as the walk is over.
_________________
LostMike
Satmap A10. Platform 21
Software version 1.5.9193
Satsync 1.525

[PloddinPedro]

Most of my use of the A10 has been whilst cycling rather than walking. I have been disappointed in the accuracy of the Trip Log data insofar as (a) it often refuses to record a start time and just shows the date; and (b) the recorded distance is always short of actual. My undertanding is that (b) is caused by the fact that it lays down a trackpoint only once every 30 seconds. When at average cycling speeds, this gives rise to a rather "coarse" trail which, when imported into Memory Map, displays a route with bends and corners cut and smoothed off. I don't know how the distance computation is actually achieved technically, but from speaking to Satmap I am led to believe that this is the cause of the inaccurancy.

To be fair, the A10 was devised primarily as a walking tool and I should imagine 30 second trackpoints would be perfectly adequate for walking speeds.

I have used the A10 side by side with my Garmin GPSmap 60CSx (trackpoints every 6 seconds) and over 50 miles the A10 is consistently about 3 miles or 6% short of the Garmin. However, this explanation doesn't answer Paul_ffitch's problem with A10 routes coming out OVER distance.

[LostMike]

I record the following for anyone who is interested (or similarly puzzled) and in the hope that Satmap will read it and take it into account.

Today I did a short walk using the A10 and version 1.16 of the software. All appears to have worked reasonably well but a few oddities arose.

Having reset the log and started a new one I walked 6ft to the car, or 78 ft as reported by the A10 which had been on and apparently achieved satlock a few minutes before. Odd.

Having finished the walk I stopped the log. At this stage I'm sure the distance shown was 6.46 miles. I then converted the trail to a track but told it not to reset the data. All seemed well but now the tracklog is showing 6.01 miles as the distance traveled. Odd.

Using Satsync I see I have three files routename.map, the larger routename.gpx and track.gpx which is exactly the same size and seems to be exactly the same as routename.gpx. I assume (but it would be nice to have it confirmed) that the track.gpx is there as I did not reset the data when I converted from trail to track.

Moving all three files to tracklogs shows a walk length of 6.54 miles for the converted map file and 6.69 for the other two. Now I can see that the finer ones might come up with a slightly longer distance than the more compressed map file but why are all three different from the figure shown on the route total. And why when I now look at the route on the A10 does it say the distance was 6.46 miles? Nothing very serious but it is odd and somewhat irritating.

A final point - can we please have a switch off the GPS feature. I'm fed up with being zoomed to some map point where I happen to be located while planning or reviewing a walk miles away. If the A10 were a pure GPS device this would make sense but when in planning mode I like to be in planning mode. Now I know that if I press the right buttons I should not move to GPS mode but it would be nice to be able to hold off the GPS locator a bit more than at present.

I hope that all makes sense and is of some interest to someone.

I'm still basically pleased with my unit and just hope that Satmap continue to improve it.
_________________
LostMike
Satmap A10. Platform 21
Software version 1.5.9193
Satsync 1.525

[mikealder]

I think the discrepancies are made more visible if/ when you stop, on a walk today with the wife and kids I stopped frequently for them to catch up and look at the scenery/ bird watching (feathered type or course) and this is what happens at each stop:



Also when we stopped for lunch in the open, I left the device on but it continues to record positional drift which adds to the trip distance:



This trip was made all the more memorable as the active10 performed without a fault, but I had to use the base map, I had inserted the wrong SD card before setting off - my fault entirely, but if you do use multiple memory cards it is worth checking the device BEFORE leaving home to avoid this rather stupid mistake - Mike

[LostMike]

Mike - I agree that wandering around a point (whether actual or tracking drift) can extend the recorded distance over a theoretical track distance but why should one machine report four different lengths for the one track it has recorded? And why should they go from 6.01 to 6.69 miles? That is over 10% variation.

Puzzling.
_________________
LostMike
Satmap A10. Platform 21
Software version 1.5.9193
Satsync 1.525

[djhpk]

Last evening I decided to perform an experiment while running my batteries down prior to recharging.

I took the A10 outside to quickly get a lock and then brought it indoors, Reset All and started the Trip Log with the A10 set to use GPS and the source of altitude information. I then put it on my desk and left it.

It shut down after 1 hour 25 minutes and the log recorded a trip of 2.98km, a maximum altitude of 256m, a minimum of 176m with 327m of ascent. My actual altitude is 210m.

During this period, I checked from time to time and the gps accuracy was always shown as "excellent" while I was looking.

I was impressed by how long it get going with the battery indicator showing red.

I am using 1.16 software.

[LostMike]

An interesting experiment djhpk!

What surprises me is that you continued to get and "excellent" signal indoors. I would have expected a poor signal which I would have expected to give the sort of results you got.

Maybe someone should try the same thing outdoors with a good signal.
_________________
LostMike
Satmap A10. Platform 21
Software version 1.5.9193
Satsync 1.525

[LostMike]

Further to the post above by djhpk and myself I today took my A10 with a freshly charged set of batteries and left it out in the rain for 2.5 hrs.

First I waited for it to get a good lock (about 9 satellites with 5 showing orange and 4 yellow) then reset all and left it. When I collected it the log said it had not moved at all (correct) and I could not persuade it to convert a trail to a track. Which appeared to indicate that as reported by the log and as shown by no track points on the screen it had detected no movement. I then connected via Satsync and found a track.gpx file which made me think that it had possibly recorded something. Looking at that 527 byte file however just showed a single point.

In other words it appears to have worked perfectly.

Not the sort of thing you want to be reporting on this forum too often.
_________________
LostMike
Satmap A10. Platform 21
Software version 1.5.9193
Satsync 1.525

[mikealder]

This might be the wrong time to ask the question but you did start the trip log function after you reset all the counters on the device did you? - Mike

[LostMike]

Good question Mike but yes I did. And to prove it the log shows a time of 2 hrs 17 minutes (I exaggerated the 2.5 hrs) and the correct height of 590 ft.

But I must admit that you got me going for a moment.
_________________
LostMike
Satmap A10. Platform 21
Software version 1.5.9193
Satsync 1.525

[PloddinPedro]

[sjdwheeler]

I have been using an A10 for the last 6 weeks or so with the 1.15 firmware initially but quickly updated to 1.16 to overcome the freezing problems. It's a clever piece of kit which I enjoy very much but the tracking drift is getting on my nerves too.

One particular example was a MTB ride around the Malverns. The memory map route I followed (not my own admittedly) stated a total ascent of c.900m. The triplog at the end of the ride displayed over 2000m! I was very pleased with myself but then realised this was highly unlikely to be true. After converting to track and then cleaning up the areas of obvious drift it still displayed ascent of 1300m.

The contours around the route are pretty severe so this might be a tough test for the Satmap but I was wondering what others who have used other GPS devices think. Would it make any difference to use the map for altitude option rather than GPS? The altitude profile was one of the main draws to the A10 so it's a shame it's not that accurate.

[djhpk]

In response to sjdwheeler's question, my advice would be to stick to using the map data for altitude if you are interested in realistic estimates of climb and descent.

I have been experimenting with the gps derived altitude data and find that the A10 gives gross overestimates of both total climb and total descent on a trip.

If you download the track data and look at it carefully you will find that the gps derived altitude has a lot of "noisy" small scale fluctuations which add up to big cumulative errors over a trip. Some sort of smoothing would seem to be needed.

The map altitude data has its own problems due to the way that it is implemented and will probably underestimate your total climb and descent on a hilly trip but, at the moment at least, will be more accurate than that derived from the gps.

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